Health check success for Boundaries for Life and Simplyhealth Professionals

Boundaries for Life and sponsors, Simplyhealth Professionals, are celebrating their most successful season of health checks this summer, helped by the introduction of new diagnostic software.

Founded in 2010 by Dr Chet Trivedy, a dual-qualified dentist and doctor, Boundaries for Life offers free health checks at major cricket fixtures throughout the UK. Made possible through a team of volunteer health professionals, spectators and ground staff are checked for signs and risks of health issues, including mouth cancer, blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, heart age, and obesity.

Commenting on this year’s success, which ran between April and September at high profile cricket venues including Lord’s, Edgbaston, Old Trafford and the Ageas Bowl to name a few, Chet Trivedy said: “It’s been a fantastic year with the team conducting over 250 checks and raising awareness of good general health and oral health with a huge audience.

“It was a particularly exciting season, as this was the first year that we conducted heart age checks in addition to our regular checks. This provides users with an opportunity to know how old their heart is medically, compared to their actual age. Many people were shocked that their heart was a lot older than they thought it was. As we were using a software system to calculate the heart ages - provided by Health Diagnostics - every user had the opportunity to understand how they could reduce their heart age. This was not possible in previous years as the health checks were not automated.”

As well as a detailed medical check from a health care professional, users also benefit from a mouth cancer check from a dentist – many of whom were volunteers from Simplyhealth Professionals’ network of member dentists. At the end of the checks, each user is given a five-page health report and access to an online interactive dashboard.

Henry Clover, Chief Dental Officer at Simplyhealth Professionals, said: “Supporting Boundaries for Life is a great opportunity to champion a very important cause, as well as to highlight Simplyhealth’s approach to preventive wellbeing. We’re delighted and very grateful that many of our member dentists volunteered their valuable time to assist with mouth cancer checks.

“The health checks offer the chance to identify people who might be at risk of future health problems at an early stage, particularly those who might not be regularly visiting a dentist or GP. Importantly, the health checks help users to understand the links between general and oral health. It encourages them to reassess lifestyle choices such as alcohol consumption, smoking and diet, which could potentially contribute to issues such as mouth cancer, diabetes, and high blood pressure.”

Not only does Boundaries for Life provide the means to help users to understand their current and future health, the initiative also has the additional benefit of collating valuable insights into the nation’s health. Data insights discovered that 34% of users were obese, 42% had a raised BMI, and 70% had a waist measurement that is considered to be medium or high risk for diabetes. Shockingly, almost half of users (48%) were at an increased risk of developing diabetes according to the Diabetes UK risk scoring system. Furthermore, one in four users had raised blood pressure, and 40% had raised cholesterol.

As a result of their health check, nearly 50 users were referred to see a GP, dentist or other health professional for further advice or treatment - potentially saving lives.

“We’re proud to have helped so many people, but these figures highlight that there is still a lot of work to do,” says Chet. “We’re keen to keep building on our success and provide an ever-broader range of checks at next season’s cricket fixtures. The checks are only possible due to our fantastic team of volunteers, including Simplyhealth Professionals member dentists. They have all promised to do more next year and that is the best endorsement we can get.”

For 145 years we’ve been helping people to make the most of life through better everyday health. In 2017 Simplyhealth and Denplan united under one Simplyhealth brand and today we’re proud to be the UK’s leading provider of health cash plans, Denplan dental payment plans and animal health plans.

We help over three million people in the UK access the health and care products, services and support that they need, when they need them and at a price they can afford.

1m health cash plan customers

1.5m patients with a Denplan payment plan

6,500 member dentists

1,900 member vets

1m animals covered

11,000 corporate clients

We’re proud to donate 10% of our pre-tax profits to health-related charitable activities every year, and this amounted to over £1 million in 2017. Our Simplyhealth Great Run Series partnership raised an additional £42.6 million for charity.

Simplyhealth is a trading name of Simplyhealth Access, which is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority.

Dental

Simplyhealth Professionals is the UK’s leading dental payment plan specialist with more than 6,500 member dentists nationwide caring for approximately 1.7 million patients registered to a Denplan product.

Simplyhealth Professionals provides the following range of leading Denplan dental payment plans under the Denplan name:

Simplyhealth Professionals also provide a wide range of professional services for its member dentists and their practice teams, including the Denplan Quality Programme and Denplan Excel Accreditation Programme. Plus regulatory advice, business and marketing consultancy services and networking opportunities.